Dear Lisa,
It’s hard to ignore the sheer greed that seems to have taken over your leadership at Mylan.
The EpiPen, priced at $600, and the newly announced $300 generic option, have effectively placed a vital medication out of reach for countless dedicated American families. The manufacturing cost of the EpiPen is just a few dollars, yet you’ve opted to inflate its price by an astonishing $500 in less than ten years. Your recent announcement regarding a generic version at “half” the price is simply smoke and mirrors.
Families dealing with allergies are acutely aware of the reality. You plan to sell us a generic EpiPen—the same product that was sold for $100 back in 2007—at a staggering 300% markup. Did you think we wouldn’t notice? Or did you assume we’d be grateful for what’s still an exorbitant price?
The fact that you are cutting the cost in half, and it’s still three times what it was less than a decade ago, highlights just how unyielding your pursuit of profit has been. For families like ours, budgeting for something that is a necessity is simply not an option. EpiPens expire annually, and the struggle to afford new ones is a recurring nightmare. Many families need more than one pack; our own family requires three, and our daughter isn’t even in school yet. I know families who need five or six packs.
The few customers who can manage your outrageous prices do so out of desperation. If we don’t make sacrifices to afford this product, our loved ones’ lives are at risk. You know there are no viable alternatives on the market, and we know it too. You hike the price, we pay. A few months later, the price goes up again, and we’re forced to pay once more. And this cycle continues.
You assert that lowering the EpiPen price would be a hardship for Mylan; however, your salary has skyrocketed over 670% since you took over the product nine years ago. An annual salary of $19 million indicates that no amount of money is sufficient to satisfy your appetite for wealth. You pocket millions while we scramble to secure life-saving medicine, hoping it lasts through the next emergency.
Your steadfast refusal to reduce EpiPen prices reveals a clear prioritization of Mylan’s profits and your personal gain over the lives of my daughter and the millions of other families who depend on multiple EpiPens for safety.
I urge you to reflect on a few points, Lisa:
- Every lavish meal you indulge in at a gourmet restaurant is funded by families who forego meals just to afford EpiPens for their children.
- Each luxury car, SUV, or boat you acquire represents money that could have gone toward car payments for families, who instead chose to buy an EpiPen, leading them to lose their only vehicle.
- Every vacation home you purchase is funded by families who are pushing back mortgage payments to ensure their children have access to multiple EpiPens.
There are countless families dealing with food allergies who are not contributing to your inflated salary—they are either living without EpiPens or relying on expired ones because they simply can’t afford this essential medication.
You can appear on television and feign concern for EpiPen accessibility issues. You can pretend to be unaware of how your price gouging has impacted allergy families over the years. You can distribute coupons, promote new but unaffordable products, and offer excuses while claiming to advocate for those with severe allergies.
However, there’s one thing you cannot do: you can’t buy your way into our community by sponsoring a few organizations. The funds you allocate to causes important to us are not genuine support. They are merely a fraction of the profits you have, in essence, taken from hardworking families.
Your philanthropy doesn’t signify compassion, Lisa. Instead, it reveals hypocrisy. You will never be seen as part of our community because your actions show you don’t value my daughter’s life or the lives of millions like her. You are not one of us, and you have demonstrated that we cannot trust you.
You may never grasp the strength and compassion within the allergy community. Although I’ve seen comments wishing you or your children would develop life-threatening allergies, I assure you that no parent in our community would ever wish that upon anyone. We’ve witnessed the terrifying reality of anaphylaxis in our loved ones.
We’ve seen hives spreading across their skin. We’ve held them as they’ve vomited and gasped for breath. We’ve watched the fear in their eyes as their blood pressure plummeted. We’ve endured the horror of seeing them turn blue. We’ve clutched our overpriced EpiPens, hearts racing, as we administered urgent doses to our children. And we’ve waited, praying that the epinephrine would work and that we acted quickly enough to save our children’s lives.
We didn’t choose this reality. For us, EpiPens are not a luxury; they are a lifeline.
If you were to experience an anaphylactic attack and someone from our community were nearby, not a single one of us would hesitate to use our overpriced EpiPens to save your life, despite the fact that you have made this vital medicine unaffordable for many. This is the character of a community you have exploited over the years, Lisa.
I am proud that my daughters will grow up in this community. They will learn from kind and empathetic individuals who value human life.
You have given me one significant gift, Lisa. Your actions will serve as a lesson to my daughters about how not to live.
They will become compassionate individuals, strong and intelligent women who care for others and exhibit empathy in all they do. They will never prioritize personal gain over the lives of others. They will become positive role models for their own children.
In essence, they will be nothing like you, Lisa.
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In summary, my letter addresses the alarming price increases of the EpiPen, highlighting the struggles families face in securing necessary medication. It calls for reflection on the consequences of prioritizing profit over humanity while emphasizing the resilience and compassion of the allergy community.
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